“Oh, busca scout, eh?” repeated Wunpost. “What for wantum scout? Plenty Shooshonnie scout, over here.”
“Hah! Shooshonnie no good!” spat the Apache contemptuously. “Me scout–me work for Government! Injun scout–you savvy? Follow tracks for soldier. Me Manuel Apache–big chief!”
“Yes, big chief!” scoffed Wunpost, “but you ain’t no scout, Manuel, or you wouldn’t be caught here in this trap. Now listen, Mr. Injun–you want to go home? You want to go see your squaw? Well, 207s’pose I let you loose, what you think you’re going to do–follow me up and shoot me for Lynch?”
“No! No shootum for Lynchie!” denied the Apache vigorously. “Lynchie–she say, busca mine! Busca gol’ mine, savvy–but ’nother man she say, you ketchum plenty money–in pants.”
“O-ho!” exclaimed Wunpost as the idea suddenly dawned on him and once more he experienced a twinge of regret. This time it was for the occasion when he had shown scornful Blackwater that seven thousand dollars in bills. And he had with him now–in his pants, as the Indian said–no less than thirty thousand dollars in one roll. And all because he had lost his faith in banks.
“You shoot me–get money?” he inquired, slapping his leg; and Manuel Apache grinned guiltily. He was caught now, and ashamed, but not of attempting murder–he was ashamed of having been caught.
“Trap hurt!” he complained, drawing up his wrinkled face and rattling his chain impatiently, and Wunpost nodded gravely.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll turn you loose. A man that will flash his roll like I did in Blackwater–he deserves to get shot in the leg.”
He took his rope from the saddle and noosed the Indian about both arms, after which he stretched him out as he would a fighting wildcat and loosened the springs with his clamps.
“What you do?” he inquired, “if I let you go?”